


Out From The Pit

by EffingEden



Category: Original Work
Genre: Constructive Criticism Welcome, Demons, Elliquiy's Storyteller Cafe, Familiars, Gen, Urban Fantasy, Wizards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 13:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3135374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EffingEden/pseuds/EffingEden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the run from demons, Killian reaches out to the only person who can help him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out From The Pit

**Author's Note:**

> For The Storyteller's Cafe over on [Elliquiy](https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?action=refferals;refferedby=4147), using the elements urban fantasy, journy & return and sunset.

The phone booth stank of urine; the walls held the decoration of restless teens; the metal-banded cord that connected the hand piece to the pay phone had been hacked at, copper wires glinting through grey steel; the coin slot was blocked by glue; the keyhole of the money draw was scratched, a poor attempt to pick the lock; the overhead light had been smashed. 

It was obvious the phone would never work again, but he had to try.

He held the phone in his hand. Before he had picked it up it had looked like salvation. Now that he had it, he realised it was only plastic and microchips. He stared, unsure what to do with it next. 

No, he knew what to do. Time had passed, but he still remembered how to use a pay phone. Still, he hesitated. In all the world, in the hundreds of acquaintances and dozens of associates, in his loose circle of old friends and smatterings of relations and intimates, he knew there was only one person he could call right now. 

It was a number he knew. He supposed if all things were fair he shouldn’t know it at all, but he had taken care to memorise it. Well, mostly. He wasn’t sure if it was nine-five or five-nine at the end. If he got it wrong, he would just redial with the second variation. One of them would be right. Unless…

Unless his only hope had moved in the – how long was it? – he’d been gone. 

“Don’t think, don’t think,” he muttered in a feverish whisper. What good would thinking do him anymore? He had to act. 

He held his hand over the phone cradle, shivering from the cold. His eyes darted to the windows and he tried to see between the gang tags to the street. In the bare glimpses he got, he saw nothing more ominous than a cat slinking through the evening twilight. If he was quick, he could do it. 

Breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. 

_he wanted it he wanted it he wanted it_

Sweat prickled his chilled skin. Pain pressed against his skull in an urgent throb. Pulse points twitched. A dark bubble of pressure grew in his head until, inevitably, it burst. 

A series of warped hieroglyphs blazed and faded in his mind’s eye. Power pulsed from him, welling inside his chest, moulded to its purpose by the images that flashed through his brain. 

A second later there was a sluggish crack of infused power rushed down his arm and out of his hand, leaping into the broken telephone. The earpiece fizzed and whispered echoes, then the dialling tone droned in his ear, working again – for the moment. 

Squinting in the dim streetlight, he pressed the numbers, fingers slow and unfamiliar with the keypad. Over the line there was a buzz of static, a click, and it began to ring.

_Let it be Diggory_ , he prayed. 

The plastic handset creaked as his grip tightened. The ringing dragged on, taunting him. No-one’s there. He’s moved. Can’t help. Won’t help. No good. Diggory wouldn’t have stayed in the old apartment. He’d have some up-market digs, with a view and thick walls. He had been on the up last time they had met. 

He knew he shouldn’t have wasted his energy. The stench of piss, the weak yellow streetlight, the monotonous trilling – it smothered him, tightened his throat. 

No one could save him. They would find him. It was what he’d been told. No one escaped. Not for long. 

Bile rose in his throat. The world spun. There wasn’t any air. He had to get out. Had to find someone to -

“Hello?”

He jumped and turned towards it instinctively. Commands in languages he didn’t understand thundered through his head. Lazy electric tendrils of power rose out of his skin snaked around his fingers in a heartbeat before reason came back to him.

“Hello,” came the voice again. He picked up the tired inflection, a resigned impatience and bitterness. The last one was new. There was a sigh and a rustle as the man on the other end moved, about to hang up.

_Say nothing_ , his pride urged. _Don’t let him know how far you’ve fallen._

He no longer trusted that voice, those words. He had listened to it before, and everything had gone to Hell.

Literally.

“Diggory.” He grimaced, the call quiet, desperate. He was sure Diggory wouldn’t have heard his pathetic whisper.

He’d underestimated Diggory’s ears. 

“Yes, this is Diggory Roe. Can I help you?” Diggory’s tone was interested now, though guarded. 

“I don’t know.” 

There was a long pause. He listened to the crackle of the line as his power interfered with the cables. 

Diggory drew a breath and asked, “It’s difficult to hear you. Who is that? It sounds like… Killian?” Surprise and disgust coloured the words. They were expected intonations. Diggory had loathed for the black magics he wove. 

“That was it, yes,” He – Killian – said. He had forgotten it. 

There was another pause.

“What’s your name now?” Diggory was sharp to have picked up the implication. Suspicion creped in, obviously recalling the Killian he had known. Diggory had picked up, but he’d get no help if the Kamagi thought he was still an Occultist.

“I can’t say it.” It was a geis, a taboo he had no power to break. “Call me Killian, would you?”

“What happened to you?” Frustration and anger were there now. Knowing Diggory, he was annoyed at himself for not being able to hang up. 

It was the question Killian had dreaded. “I was messing with the occult back then. You remember.”

“How could I forget?” came the snappish reply.

“I was stupid. I thought the rites were just the quick way to get power. Diggory, my circle. My own… they betrayed me.” His eyes darted over the graffiti, unseeing as he tried to answer to Diggory’s satisfaction without making himself seem worse.

“You mean that’s not what you deserve?”

He hadn’t thought it would be like this. Diggory was a force of good, he was meant to help. “They gave me to the demons,” he spat. Diggory hissed like he had just been scalded. Killian’s hand shook harder above the phone. “I have been in The Pit.” He laughed. “They filled my head with their words. I don’t know what any of it means, but the things I can do now... I managed to escape.” His words were coming out quicker. They were frantic, disconnected, panic clutching at him. “I’m being hunted. They’re following me. I’m valuable. You know what they do to humans? I’ve seen them. I don’t want it to end like that! Diggory, I don’t know anyone else who can help me. I don’t want to end up like that.”

“Calm down, Killian! Look, I didn’t catch half of that, but you have to calm down. You’re losing control of your magic – it’s disrupting the phone line. It sounds like you’re too charged. Can you ground yourself?” Diggory’s words were disrupted by whines and pops of static. He was right, there was too much power.

With an effort, Killian tempered his energy. The white noise dropped to the background. Grounding wasn’t an option anymore. 

“Alright, that’s better. Where are you? I could… come over…”

It wasn’t the heroic and flawless proposition Killian wanted to hear, but he understood. “I’ll come to you.” He hung up then, before Diggory could protest and let his hands drop back to his sides, his right arm twitched with residual power. It was several degrees colder than his other hand and his joints ached. There was always a price to pay for using power, and demonic power was all about pain.

He rubbed at it with his warmer hand, wishing it wasn’t so chilly. His eyes flicked to the street as he turned towards the door – and stopped. There was something there, in the deepening shadows. It was quite a distance away, and there was scratching on the glass, breaking up its outline. Then the thing, the smudge of darker shadow, melted away like blood in water. 

It was time to go.

He didn’t make a move to leave the phone booth. Too dangerous – and he doubted what had scared the shadow off was him looking at it. Instead, he concentrated. Obscene images and bastardised sigils flashed through his head, the swell of magic in his chest being forged into shape by his will and the warped knowledge in his mind. 

It took all the time of a heartbeat for the power to go from raw energy to pulsing intent. Killian unleashed it, and the world around him vanished.


End file.
